Hereafter
by DME0414
Summary: What happens if fate is perhaps willing to deal Hermione Granger another chance at saving Sirius Black. [Not a time-turner story] [Canon complaint for the most part]


**AN: Hello! To understand the story line here is the information you need to know, Sirius was returned from the Veil by Hermione in 2005, this is a present time Fic, Hermione and Ron's marriage is essentially no more, but they've remained married to keep the press at bay, Hermione and Sirius in the wake of her failed marriage have had an affair, this is canon besides the Sirius and Hermoine's story line.**

 **Also, just remember while reading this, every story has a beginning, middle, and end, but they are never necessarily told in that order.**

* * *

 **Hereafter**

 _ **March 21st, 2015**_

 ** _SIRIUS ORION BLACK MURDERED_**

 _Yesterday the Wizarding World lost Auror Black in the line of duty during the Wizengamot hearing held by Minister Shacklebolt over the case of Silas Grant, muggleborn who is on trial for the murder of three pure-bloods. In a strange turn of events, he was not killed by use of magic, but instead by a muggle weapon known as a gun. Not much is yet known, like how Grant smuggled the muggle weapon in, but it is speculated that Auror Black was not the intended target, that Black acted instead out of bravery to try and stop the events unfolding._

 _Sirius Black is survived by his godson, Harry Potter, and his close friends and family._

 _Details of his funeral have yet to be announced, but Harry Potter has requested privacy for his family and friends as they deal with this tragedy._

 _One is left to wonder, how Hermione Jean Granger is doing in the wake of this news, with rumors circling for years now that Black and her were involved in a romantic affair._

 _We here at the Daily Prophet are committed to bringing you all the coming details as they are unveiled over this high profile case._

* * *

 **May 12th, 2015**

She's too old to be doing things like this.

Yellow and orange and pinks are in her peripheral and there's the cracks in the pavement as a trail to follow. Her right knee is exploding with every sharp pound of the sidewalk, and beads of sweat fall down her forehead, sting her burning eyes. It's painful to breathe, the kind of running she's missed since Hogwarts. She's missed this, and she hadn't even known it.

She once took a trekking class up at the local muggle gym, when the kids were little.

It's nothing like the feeling of moving without thought, without looking down at a machine. Every nuance of the terrain, every heave of her chest.

She can feel him with her.

She knows, see, _she knows_ anyone on the outside looking in would just see a thirty five year old woman, fit and lithe in her black workout pants. Unassuming, going about her daily business. On a Monday morning run. The river is there, beside her, and there's her form that she should be paying attention to- but it doesn't matter, because it's not like it would make her joints feel any younger.

But they don't see what she sees. Her eyes close periodically, and she can picture it as clear as the horizon, as clear as the buildings in London and all the terrible things the people inside are or have done. Hermione closes her eyes and she feels him running beside her.

They did it twenty years ago, on midnights during winter holiday when neither of them could sleep. Few and far between, and it wasn't anything permanent, but she'd take the time to lace up and he'd just wait for her so they could go. Get it out of their systems. It wasn't sexual then, but sometimes shared exertion doesn't have to be intimacy to matter. They picked up the habit again when he returned, when she and Ron resided alongside Harry and him in number twelve Grimmauld Place. Sometimes she'd fall into a battering step beside him, and sometimes it would feel like that was her _place_ , swimming in her bloodstream, like two animals disappearing into the night. Instinctual.

Things always felt so _right_ when she was with him, even though she didn't realize it till after she returned him from the veil ten years ago, how could she not have known if he was removed from the equation, things would go to hell, and nothing would make sense, and she'd spin and spin until all she could do was run in time with her heartbeat.

She doesn't need music, because she swears she can hear him breathing. Panting as Padfoot.

Rewind three months, and he was alive. He was here. He was real. He is gone, but he was here. This was the path he drew for himself. His heart was beating. He was here. He was real.

She tells herself these things. This is the way she survives.

Hermione makes sure not to think of his body, of his muscles beginning to shrivel with the decomposition. Of his biceps, and his calves, and his abdominal line that she'd trace, once, not too long ago. She does not think of how he's not breathing anymore, how the sound of her sneakers hitting the ground could be gunshots, all destroying in the wake of her.

The sun is rising and warming the left side of her face, and it feels like his love.

She blows air between her lips and stops, leans down to rest her hands on her knees, hates how out of shape she's been these past few years. She imagines Sirius stopping too.

She imagines him laughing, telling her, _"If you can't keep up love, you're getting left at home next time."_

She imagines stopping him, throwing her arms around his neck in all their sweaty expanse. She imagines kissing him hard and fast on the mouth, sharp from the toothpaste, on the side of the river. The sun keeps rising, and she's still alone, and she's staring at the bench in front of her and wondering if it's real wood. She imagines running through muggle London, running further, towards Grimmauld Place, but no-

She imagines running somewhere else. Going home with him. Their home.

They've never even lived alone together.

All of this is so silly.

None of this is making any sense.

Hermione sets off again, faster and rougher than ever before, wants to get her heart rate up until everything is explosions in her eardrums. Her legs stretch to accommodate a longer stride, quads taking the brunt. More. She needs more. She needs white noise.

She can't feel him next to her anymore. She's trying to catch up.

If she just runs a little faster, maybe she'll catch up, and even if he won't talk to her, even if all there is anymore- these little fantasies in her head, these little dreams of stolen kisses and broken memories. Before and after. Once upon a time. Imagining gunshots. She can't hear his breathing. All she hears is gunshots. All she hears is silence. All she sees is her own loneliness.

She's been praying, even if she doesn't believe in anything. Faith has always been a fallacy, but since Ginny said what she said, she's been trying the hardest she can. She's been closing her eyes and whispering across her pillow, imagining him on the other side of the bed, beside her. Always beside her, and she was never under him. They were always equal, studied the same material, kissed with the same fervor. _"Wait up,"_ she's trying to say, and both her knees are crying out in pain.

" _Please just slow down. Come back. Nothing makes sense and I wanted the world with you. I want to wake up with you and go for runs with you and die in your arms. I wanted to lie down in a grave next to you when we were white haired and ready. Please stop leaving me every time I wake up. Please stop dying every time I go to tell you what's on my mind."_

Hermione whispers this to herself.

Her time is almost up. She has to go back to the world of kicking ass, and life has to keep going. Nothing is stopping except Sirius's heart. Nothing is stopping except her own heart.

She thinks this, this exact thought, and then she makes a turn to cross the street.

Her father taught her to look both ways when she still wore her hair in pigtails, and Hermione Granger is not suicidal. She values her own life because she still loves her children, and even if she did think it, just once, lying beneath sheets the day after Sirius's funeral, thought about going to Knockturn Alley and asking for a dark potion, going to her father's old cabin in the woods-

Death will come to her, Hermione had decided.

She's always known this. Once, when fighting during the second war she'd been afraid of this happening. She'd been terrified of burning up in Fiendfyre, or succumbing to a Killing Curse, of having nothing. So she's not suicidal, just a realist. A cynical realist, and it had brought a twisted grin to her face, brittle around the edges, bathed in misery, to know that one day, she wouldn't have to stick the bottle in her mouth. She'll wait.

Hermione is so good at waiting.

She'll wait, and death will come to her, and when it does, there will be nothing.

Or maybe, maybe Sirius will be there, waiting for her. Both are pleasant outcomes. One is for the naïve, and one is for those who believe in truth. Maybe they'll both find one another, in some fray of afterlife. They'll hold each other in heaven, fuck like animals in hell. Ha. Ha. Ha.

The man driving the car is a muggle businessman, already late for work. He has a fresh coffee stain on the shirt his wife had starched for him yesterday. He's yelling into his phone, face a cherry, engine revved.

All it takes is a second, and he's looking down, trying to hang up.

All it takes is a second.

* * *

Hermione Granger doesn't even flinch when the car hits her.

Her eyes fall closed, mere milliseconds before impact.

Almost as if she's _waiting._

* * *

When she comes to consciousness, it greets her like the taste of honey. Sweet, slow. Drips from her eyelids, one pulse, two pulse. Hermione blinks awake, and thinks it was all a dream.

She was meaning to go for a run this morning, has her shoes and tank top laid out. Hermione sits up in bed, and looks down to find-

To find she's not what she went to bed in last night. It's getting warmer, so she'd gone to sleep in a tank top and a loose pair of sweat pants. She's in long sleeves that mint green pullover that's warming. But there's a chill to the air. Her feet are cold, and she can hear the heater going full blast.

Hermione looks over to find her sneakers aren't on her dresser, where she knows she'd placed them.

Checks the clock- finds it's half past eight. She's going to be late going into the office.

There's no way there'd be time for a run, anyway.

It's as if she's an alien to her own skin. She reaches up to touch her face, to see if one physical, tangible thing will make the scene shatter. Nothing happens. Her skin is warm beneath her fingers, flushed. She must be half asleep, and she tries to stretch, moves to step onto the freezing hardwood.

It's so startlingly chilly, to the point that it doesn't feel like May at all.

Hermione moves toward her bedroom door, opens it and practically jumps ten feet in the air.

" _Rose_ ," Hermione admonishes her daughter, eyes wide as saucers. Her throat is still clogged with sleep. "You scared the crap out of me." Rose shrugs, and Hermione takes note of the fact she's already dressed for school.

"Was just coming to wake you up," Rose defends. "Need you to sign this." A piece of paper is thrust in front of Hermione's face. She takes it, glances at the words. Her stomach turns, the likes of confusion prickling across her scalp.

"What is this?"

Rose turns her back on her mother, moving to grab a banana on the stove. "The Muggle Science Exhibit. We talked about it last night, remember?"

Hermione trudges forwards on lead legs, tries to feel for a bar stool to sit down on. She rubs her eyes, rereads the piece of paper again. Rose places a pen in front of her mother, expectant.

"Rose," Hermione says weakly, and the ten year old girl's eyebrows furrow in worry at the tone. At how green her mother looks.

"Mom, are you gonna be sick? Are you okay?"

Hermione finally looks up. "You went on this field trip weeks ago. Are you going again?"

Rose feels something ebb at her, utterly baffled. She shakes her head. "No, Mom. I've never been to the exhibit before. Are you okay? What's wrong? Do you not want me to go? I've got to hurry and get to school before-

"Rose," Hermione asks, and her words are all out of alignment when she speaks them. They are like holding atom bombs in her mouth, because the connotation that maybe. That maybe-

That maybe it really is in black in white ink, laid out in front of her. This can't be real. She asks her daughter what the date is, all falling apart, in pieces. She can't afford to hope, so she doesn't. She just _waits._

"It's March twentieth. Why?"

Hermione's hands begin to shake. And then her torso, then her jaw. Then her everything.

Rose is saying things in her ear, touching her hair, but all Hermione can do is stare while her eyes fill with tears. Because. Because.

"Are you sure?" Hermione mumbles under her breath. She thinks she might hurl from the hurricane in her stomach. She's crying, and she's shaking, and it can't be today. It's impossible. But Rose is throwing out things left in right, and it isn't until Hermione vaguely hears her daughter threaten to call her father that Hermione snaps out of it, reaches up to wipe her face.

"No," she cuts her off. "No, Rose. It's fine. I just. I had a really bad dream, I think. Here."

Hermione's signature looks like shit, but Rose has gone quiet, and that's enough.

"Mom, you really don't look okay. What's wrong?"

Hermione tries to keep the constricting sobs from overtaking her once again. It's not that she's crying because she's sad, or happy, or anything like that. Her emotion is not definite, it's just present. It's consuming. It's relief. Or fear. Or-

"Rose, I'm okay," Hermione interrupts, monotone, concealing. She carries herself on barely mobile legs, to the bathroom- to take a shower. To do something else but stare at the clock or stare at the calendar on the wall. "Get to school," she calls over her shoulder, terse. "You're gonna be late."

* * *

She turns on the shower as hot as she can get it, until it leaves her skin in blotches of red and white. Under the spray, she takes a good ten minutes just thinking. Just remembering.

Because it had to have been real.

She didn't just imagine the funeral. She didn't just imagine Sirius's casket, how the wood was sleek and lid closed. The smell of flowers, permeating her nostrils. Harry rocking her in her arms, the birds. The call. Kingsleys's call. The fight. She and Ron had fought, and then tried to be cordial, and-

It's all so muddled, like her head is underwater. She wonders if it's like that muggle movie she watched one summer with her mother that starred Sandra Bullock, like some premonition. It's not real, though.

None of it was real, and she needs to go to work.

She's still wearing her wedding ring, and even if a part of her is ripping apart at the idea that she can change things now, that she can go to Sirius Orion Black and tell him everything she had longed to say, curled up in an empty bed, beneath sheets of white. Beneath tons and tons of unimaginable grief.

This is reality.

She needs to go to work.

* * *

When Hermione opens up her closet, she finds a cream colored blazer that she'd planned to wear to the Wizengamot hearing, and then a black skirt suit for the S.P.E.W. Club luncheon.

And-

She stops, eyes brimming with tears again. Tears that she stubbornly pushes back, because-

Because this is reality. This is reality, and nothing bad ever happened today. It was just a dream.

* * *

Harry is picking her up at eleven thirty for the Wizengamont hearing, and it's only nearly eleven. She's changed, but she's still too restless from the weight of wondering to sit at her desk and do paperwork like she should be, like she's in the habit of doing. She could walk across the street, get a cup of tea. It's the best course of things, she decides.

Hermione is sipping at the hot beverage, seated casually at a table, when she feels her phone buzzing by her leg. It's not in the side pocket of her purse, so she has to hunt for it, and by the time she finds it, the person is already leaving a voicemail.

Hermione's blood freezes in her veins.

It's like her whole being comes to a screeching halt.

Carefully, nimble fingers flying, she unlocks her phone.

She raises the cellular device to her ear, and listens to the short voicemail.

She listens, and she stands, and she almost knocks people down, with the way she runs to a connected Floo network.

* * *

Harry calls her as she's running down the road

She puts it on speakerphone.

" _Hermoine, where the hell are-_

"Harry, I'm going to be there. I'm going now, do not ask me why. I'm just going there now, okay?"

It must be something in her voice. Something in her desperation. Even now, there's tears in her eyes, heart in her throat. She doesn't have much time.

Sirius doesn't have much time.

" _Is everything okay, Hermione?"_

"I don't know. I- I'll call you back, okay? I'll call you back."

* * *

She calls Sirius back twice, but his phone goes to voicemail both times.

She doesn't leave messages.

* * *

Sirius Orion Black's official time of death was eleven twenty six, when Healers attempted to revive him for the third time.

At two minutes til eleven, Hermione finds herself outside of the Ministry of Magic; she needs to get to the dungeons, where his trial is being held.

* * *

She slips inside, and she sees the back of his head. This is real. This is all real, and not a dream. He is real, and she watches him talk to Silas, and her legs feel foreign entities when she finds a seat because she hears Kingsley talking, and her heart is beating so fast, and he's alive.

He's alive.

Hermione clutches at her purse strap, and he, and Sirius is-

"-like to request a sidebar."

His voice. His _voice, and-_

Hermione watches in horror. Blaise and Sirius approach, and she watches them talk, sways and blinks hard.

She looks at Silas. Hermione focuses on Silas, and she knows what's coming by the way he begins to look around. Silas's swaying too, head darting. How could nobody have seen it, seen the kid like a skittish animal, and the way his hand reaches inside his jacket to grab-

Hermione screams.

It's loud to her own ears, and her purse goes flying when she lurches forward, _moves,_ and Silas already has the muggle gun, is already pointing it at-

A shot fires.

Hermione wrenches away from the sound, can hear Rose's laughter in the back of her mind, but she still sees Sirius, and he's turned, and there's blood on the tile, the witness, and-

Silas raises the gun, and _no. No._

She's possessed when she shrieks again, shrieks the boy's name. He turns in her direction instead of Sirius's and Hermione is only looking at Sirius, and he can't die like this, he can't when there isn't any blood yet, and-

The gun points in her direction, and Silas pulls the trigger, even if he was just turning to see who was calling his name, with all his trembling in self persevering fear. But Hermione is reckless with all her weaving body, and she's trying to get to Sirius, and Sirius looks so scared, so terrified, but he's still _moving towards the gun,_ and-

"Sirius! _Sirius!"_ Hermione screams, throat hoarse, half a sob caught, and she feels so cold.

And then Sirius tackles Silas.

The kid's got so much adrenaline pumping through him, but Sirius's got rage. Sirius's got fear, got protection, too. Primal.

(See, he just watched Hermione get shot, body flailing, and even if a part of him needs to go to Hermione, there's another matter at hand. Hermione. _Hermione, Hermione, Hermione._ And instead of the coldness one would look at a wild animal, because in another life it was just the witness- the intended victim was Hermione, this time. This stupid kid could kill _Hermione,_ and that drives him more than any fathomable force. It's instinctual. It's enough. _)_

The gun goes off again, split through a bench, and then it's out of Silas's hands.

Sirius takes it and throws it. Not dissimilar to how he'd throw a Quaffle. Hard, fast enough to make his long forgotten shoulder injury twinge, and Silas tries to throw a punch, tries to get the muggle weapon back, but the muggle weapon is already somewhere else, and Hermione is quivering, splayed out on the floor, at the men's feet. She's vulnerable to anything, and-

Blaise is there, suddenly, trying to pull Hermione away because the others Aurors are there, trying to shoot curses now that they are past their initial shock, and-

" _Sirius,"_ Hermione moans, and when the first curse hits Silas, it's like watching a monster get it's coming. Silas falls, and Sirius dives down to the floor, and she doesn't know if he's been hit by a stray curse or not but all she can seem to comprehend is how beautiful he is, how alive. Sirius is so alive, and it's overwhelming, it's-

She closes her eyes, strains against Blaise's hold because she knows Sirius is in the line of fire, knows that he's not _safe_ -

But nothing happens, no more curses fired, because like the sensation of falling just before hitting sleep, Hermione closes her eyes and they _stay_ shut.

* * *

This time, when she wakes up, it hurts.

It hurts because she can hear Sirius's voice in her head, and she doesn't know if she's waking from a dream and he's dead again. She wonders if this is her hell. If the constant turmoil of Sirius Black's death is her own personal demon. Hands are on her cheeks, brushing her hair back from her forehead, and she opens her eyes slowly, blinks against the blur of the outside world, and-

"Sirius," her breathing hitches, a whine. She's in his lap.

His smell. _His smell_ is all around her, and she knows it's his aftershave he used this morning, and there's-

"Blood," she cries out, twisting. Sirius's grey eyes are tender for her, and she can hear Blaise saying something, and she tries to focuses, to make the syllables out, and-

"I think whatever it is just went through and through," Blaise says, trying to put pressure on her arm, but Hermione tries to twist away again, sees the red all over Sirius's jacket and shirt, and tries to imagine this is how he looked when Kingsley and Blaise found him, when-

"Sirius, you're hurt," she realizes, slurs. "Sirius, you're hurt, you-

"No," he assures her, and the sound of his voice, the silky smoothness, it makes her tear up. It makes her begin to garble.

"Sirius, I thought you were dead, you were dyi-

"Hey, hush," he leans in to whisper, hands in her hair moving faster, more jarring. He's trying to get her attention. "Hermione, you've been hit, but it's gonna be okay, alright? The Healers are going to be here in a second, okay?"

She barely understands what's really happening-

That Silas Grant is writhing in pain a few feet away, that Sirius isn't as calm as he is trying to express to her. That he's really shaking like a leaf, voice quick and cutting, and Blaise has a hand on his arm, trying to reassure _him_ with the fact it's only a graze, that it could be worse, but-

"Mione," Sirius calls her, and Hermione is trying not to fall asleep again. She reaches her hand up to touch his jaw, feels how warm it is. She begins to cry in full, trying to pull herself closer. She doesn't have to attempt, because Sirius sees where she's going. He leans in further, jostles her to pull her further into him, told hold her as she cries. He thinks it's because she's in pain. Hermione must be in pain, but it's nothing.

It's nothing, apparently, in comparison to the pain she's been in, in the other world. She's so accustomed to walking around in agony that a muggle bullet slicing through her arm is barely noticeable, and she inhales shakily, goes, "Sirius, I ne-ne-need you to te-tell me what your voicemail sa-sa- _said."_

She's not crying because of the bullet wound. She's crying because he's _okay._

His expression is completely slack, his own eyes beginning to tear. "Nothing that can't wait a little bit, alright?"

Hermione shifts further, smearing blood further onto his clothing. It drips down her arm thickly, but the truth is, the metal didn't even tear through muscle. She buries her face in his neck, doesn't care if Blaise is sitting right beside them. Everything is in stasis, but they have this moment.

She has so many moments she thought she'd never have.

She has them, and now she's using them.

Sirius rubs her back, presses a kiss to the crown of her head. "Please," Hermione pleads. "Tell me. Pl-please just—"

Sirius grinds his jaw against the onslaught of his own emotion. Eyes grown dim, he leans in to speak into her ear. The other man can't even hear the words he exchanges to Hermione, can't hear the low, low murmur of-

"I want to stop fighting, Hermione. I want to try again at what we had, because-

Sirius breaks off, and Hermione sniffs hard, turns her mouth to press against the side of his- not quiet on his lips in her delirium of nerve endings igniting, even if she doesn't understand her body's own reaction. He doesn't pull away, though, simply takes her jaw in his hands and adjusts so that he can mouth the words to her. Only for her.

"I love you," he whispers. "I've loved you for a very long time, and even if I don't like some of the things you've done-

He says the words with a hint of sarcasm, and it's enough to pull a wobbly smile to her lips. Her makeup is smeared ten ways to Sunday, but the words are so powerful that none of it matters, not the gore or all the death. This is real.

This is real, and he goes, "I love you so much, Hermione."

He kisses her lips softly. She closes her eyes, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks, and her fingers grip the lapels of his ruined suit jacket, and-

She sighs into his mouth, begins to slump forward.

"Hey," Sirius growls, and Hermione's eyes flutter open at the timbre. "Stay awake, okay? Please stay awake."

"Okay," she says drowsily, cheeks twitching at the notion of falling asleep and leaving all of this. Even with the commotion, this is real, this is real, and Sirius loves her. And Ron was wrong. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Ron was wrong, and Sirius loves her, and they're going to start over, they're going to fix it, and-

"Love you too," she says, all of a sudden. It comes out clearer than anything else.

Her arm is starting to ache.

Sirius fixes her with this look, eyes still only for her, and even in all the shit she's currently going through, he doesn't think Hermione has ever looked so beautiful, so angelic. He thinks to himself, _what if the bullet had hit her someplace she wouldn't recover from?_

And Sirius thinks, _if Hermione died, I don't know what I'd do._

The Healers arrive at eleven twenty, and Hermione is at St. Mungo's five minutes later.

* * *

At eleven twenty six in the afternoon, Hermione's arm is wrapped sloppily in gauze, and her ear is rested against Sirius's breast, tucked into the confines of a waiting room, she'd insisted he wait with her, and she hears his heart beat steadily.

She's never heard something more pure.

* * *

Ron and Harry arrive at St. Mungo's, looking for her. The Healer wants to run test on her, as wizards and witches they do not have much experience with muggle weapons, and the wounds they create. They've figured out they can't heal it magically for some reason so they are going to stitch it free hand and send her home. Ron's called the kids, and Hermione is disgusted to think he's worried them, that he has a media circus just waiting outside because he didn't even think about the implication of-

Ron tells her he's called the kids, and Sirius tells her he's going to wait outside, and a part of her is straining in dislike at that, wants to be near him, wants to listen to his heart beat some more, and Hermione watches Ron _look_ at Sirius, and-

Harry's in the room. _Good,_ Hermione thinks.

"Ron," she tries to say as calmly as she can, tries to sound as sane as possible. God, her arm is starting to _hurt._ This annoying burn. "I want a divorce."

All hell promptly breaks loose.

* * *

Their second screaming match is different than the one in the other universe. This one is more passive aggressive trills, more looks of mock. More Ron telling her she's absolutely insane for making this kind of decision, reducing her words to the potions they're giving her for pain.

She informs him they haven't given her anything yet. When Harry speaks up, the ball starts rolling.

It doesn't stop until Ron pointedly walks out of the room, ten minutes later.

Sirius is still hovered there, and Hermione hisses when Ron roughly pushes past Sirius, Harry following quietly, but it's-

It's cold in her chest chased out by warmth when Sirius comes back in, sits beside her.

He holds her hand when the Healer sews her up, kisses her forehead each time she cringes and whimpers. He whispers to her and stares at her like he's almost lost his whole world, and she thinks it's funny, how in the other world, this is how she would've been too. This is what she's wanted, and it's like the immediate closeness isn't the result of trauma, or fear. It's the result of having all the other shit thrown to the wayside. Priorities. Perspective.

It's not gooey, not outwardly expressive public displays of affection, but it's comfortable. It comforting. He is here. He is real.

He is alive.

She tells herself this to keep her head above the tide of it all.

* * *

When Rose and Hugo arrive, Rose is crying, and Hugo's eyes are red, too. She opens one of her arms that's not stitched. Sirius says he'll step outside again but when she almost tells him to stay, he says he'll go get everyone some tea. Asks Hugo and Rose what they want, and it's-

It's weird, and it makes her happy, and it's quite hard to explain the particularities of _why._

"They're saying you're a hero, Mom," Hugo is gruffly telling her. "Did you really try and get the muggle weapon away from Silas?"

Hermione strokes a hand through her daughter's pretty hair, shakes her head fondly. "No," she mutters, a somber edge in her voice. "Sirius is the one who tackled him. He's the real hero."

Rose's eyes perk at that, taking in every detail, and Hermione may have been drugged up, but she could have sworn that when Sirius came back into the room and passed out tea- that they looked like they had more respect for Sirius than they'd had before. She knows that they'll get there.

They will.

* * *

Sirius steps out to talk with Kingsley on the phone, and when he comes back, Rose inquires, slightly off put, "Where's Dad?"

"At the press conference," Hugo tells her, and Sirius nods in agreement.

"Your father thought it would be pertinent to get the press away from your mother," he says.

"Hmm," Hermione hums sadly, half impatient that the Healer still hasn't brought her chart back with her papers to sign. "Press will definitely be waiting for us at the flat."

"We could stay with Dad tonight," Rose offers up, but Hugo shakes his head.

"Mom probably doesn't want to Floo, Rose."

"What I want is a Order of Merlin and rest," Hermione tries to insert as jokingly as she can, but it falls flat. There's an awkward silence, because Hermione knows what she wants to do, knows what's going to happen. Life is all a matter of how the goal can be achieved, at this point. Maneuvering obstacles to get through, and even if her kids aren't an obstacle, the press certainly are. They've spent too long waiting for the knock.

"I think you both should stay with your Dad tonight," Hermione voices, fixing her gaze on Sirius. He clears his throat, smoothing a hand over the outline of his jaw. Before the kids had arrived, Kingsley had shown up with fresh clothing for Sirius, had said he was closely monitoring Silas Grant's condition.

The kid was so sick in the head.

Kingsley had told her as much before leaning in to hug her, and whisper his thanks, which was strange. Discombobulating to Hermione, who had watched as Kingsley stepped outside to speak with Sirius. Hermione had thought, in that time she was alone, about the other day she'd spent. How she'd wandered around from place to place for the voicemail's meaning to come to light. How everything had been dark, and the world hadn't made sense anymore. How she'd felt dead inside, and how she's avoided all of this by making a different decision.

She wonders if, in the other life, she could have saved Sirius's life like she did today.

There's no time for bullshit.

Knowing the alternative has taught her this much.

"I think I'm going to stay with Sirius tonight, okay guys? I need to hang around London in case the Auror's need anything from us."

They look wary, but they can't not agree.

Sirius looks surprised by her forwardness, and she offers up a wry raise of her mouth.

She hasn't lied to them, in any case. Just omitted the truth of the matter.

 _I need to fall asleep next to him. I need to wake up and hear his heartbeat and know he's not cold as ice. I need to wake up like that every morning for the rest of my life, because I control my own fate. And I want a happy life._

* * *

Right before her children part she hugs them both tightly.

It hits her, quite suddenly, that she could have died today, too.

* * *

On the way back to his flat, they pick up her potions, and when she walks out of the store he informs her, "I ordered pizza from that muggle shop near my flat, the one you love, while I was waiting because you have to take the potion with-

She leans in and pulls his mouth down hard on hers. He gives into the kiss, strokes his thumb across her cheekbone and grunts at the taste. He's trying to be gentle with her, trying to give her a little bit of space, but then she just goes for it like that, and- "Mione. It's okay. Hey. _Hey."_

"I know," she whispers throatily, all cried out. "I'm just so happy you're _okay._ That it wasn't…worse. _"_

"I didn't even get a battle scar from today," Sirius tries to tease, but Hermione's face falls, something dark in her eyes.

 _Once, there was a bullet that tore through your throat and tore my world apart._

* * *

They try to listen to the news, but when their bellies are gorged on pizza and Hermione truly is high as a kite, they manage to find their way into his bedroom. The sheets are just as she remembered them, and standing the threshold of his room, she tries to kick back the lump in her throat. She can't get her arm wet, but she feels so unclean, and even if this is his room, she knows that in some other life there's a flat just like this one up for sale, that Harry and Neville had to clean out, and it's just-

"Can we shower?" she murmurs, choked up. "Or-

"I'll run you a bath," Sirius inclines his head, runs a hand across the small of her back and nuzzles her throat.

* * *

They've done this before. Twice, actually. But it still makes something unfurl in her chest to see the bubbles, to smell the soaps. She had joked, years ago, that he was putting the Black moves on her, that he had the goodies for all the girls he wanted to make swoon, but this, staring at the sight of him testing the water with his hands before undressing her, it's different.

It's like watching the rest of her life play out before her eyes. Comfort. Peace. Love.

Happiness.

And it's so jarring to think that this could have all gone away. That this was stripped from her, in that other world. That in the dream she would never have this, only her loneliness. That something this whole, this beautiful, could have crumbled so easily. It's horrific.

But he helps her slide down into the tub, and she yearns.

She begs him to join her.

He does.

* * *

When she watches him stand before her, naked, she looks up at him, and even if she has to be conscientious of her arm, it still makes her mouth dry. Hermione is already half asleep, but she doesn't want to go just yet, and she studies the smattering of hair across his pubic bone, the hair on his legs, the clench of his biceps as he gets behind her, slides in along her back, and-

Hermione exhales, leans against him. He wraps his arms around her middle, the water hot and yielding all around them. "This is so much different than how I'd expected it," he informs her, hazy.

"Oh," Hermione murmurs. "How did you expect it?"

"Taking you against a desk. Angry."

He bites into her neck, that spot. The spot that's never ceased to make her toes curl, and she half moans. "Yeah."

"Yeah," he agrees. "But this is better, I think."

Sirius's long, deft fingers trace the curve of her inner thighs, find the apex of her body and begin to circle her clit. "So much better," he swallows thickly, and begins to work his hand.

Hermoine splutters, gripping his thigh with her good hand, twisting her neck to delve her tongue into his mouth.

* * *

At midnight, she's still awake despite the barely there lull of consciousness. Her thoughts are unintelligible, but he's staying up with her until she falls asleep, and she just…won't.

"You have to be exhausted," he makes out, holds her and rocks her in his arms. It's intimate and real and she keeps having to remind herself that he's alive. It hits her constantly, that he's really hear.

These are his lungs. This is his heart. This is his skin.

"I think I had a dream you died," she slurs. "And it was the worst thing in the world."

"When I saw that muggle gun go off and you were standing in the line of fire, I almost lost it," he admits, hoarse. He presses his lips to her temple, squeezes her tighter.

"Why'd you go for the gun?" Hermione asks softly. She has to repeat the question again before he realizes she actually wants an answer.

"Because I thought he was going to shoot you," he tells her, as if the line of questioning is obtuse.

"No," Hermione stops him. "In the other life."

He has no idea what she's talking about, thinks it must be the medication. "Because I thought he was going to shoot you," he tells her again.

Slowly, recognition forms in Hermione's mind, some strange sound parting her lips.

"Hey," he goes. "Shh. I'm right here. Go to sleep. I'm right here. I love you, Hermione."

She tries to tell him the same, but before she knows it, she's fallen asleep in his arms, his heart pulsing against her timid cheek.

They sleep like they're dead.

* * *

 **Hope you enjoyed, DME0414**


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